Israel Vanquishes Iran…on the Chess Board
An Israeli chess grandmaster took the Guinness record for simultaneous chess games from the Jewish state’s arch-foe Iran on Friday after a marathon 19-hour match against 523 players.
A Guinness representative confirmed the new record on Israeli army radio.
Alik Gershon, 30, won 86 percent of the games he played against amateurs in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square. He won 454, lost 11 and drew the other 58.
He needed to win at least 80 percent to seal the record, which previously stood at 500 simultaneous games.
As he played his final move on the very last chess board at around 5:30 am (0330 GMT), Gershon shook the player’s hand before raising his arms in victory as the first light of dawn broke over the square.
“This is a very exciting day,” he beamed, shortly after receiving his certificate from the British Guinness official who witnessed the event.
“It was very difficult, it was a supreme effort,” he said. “There were some strong players there.”
Asked how he felt beating his Iranian rival, he laughed.
“It’s a very sweet feeling. It’s something which we prepared for a very long time,” he said. “Failure wasn’t an option. I am very, very happy that I made it.”
The tournament had started under the blazing midday sun on Thursday with Gershon shaking hands with every single player as he walked along rows of tables lined with chess boards.
Training for the event, which was sponsored by the quasi-governmental Jewish Agency and the Israeli Chess Federation, was purely physical and included a lot of jogging and swimming, the former Israeli champion said.
“There are a lot of kilometres to walk and you have to stay focused,” he told AFP on Thursday, noting that his Iranian rival, Morteza Mahjoob, walked 40 kilometers (25 miles) to secure his record.
Mahjoob set his record in August 2009 in a feat which took him 18 hours and with less than five seconds for each move.
“Hopefully all our wars against Iran will be on the chess board,” said a smiling Gershon. “For such wars, I am prepared.”
Off the board, the rivalries are more strongly felt, with Israel and Iran being implacable foes.
Iran’s firebrand President Mahmud Ahmadinejad is notorious for oft-repeated denials of the Nazi Holocaust and for saying that the Jewish state will one day be wiped off the map.
Last week, Ahmadinejad visited Lebanon’s southern border with Israel, coming the closest he has ever been to the Jewish state, in a trip that was denounced as provocative by Israel and the United States.
The two governments and other world powers accuse Iran of using its nuclear energy program to hide efforts to produce an atomic bomb, a charge Tehran vehemently denies.
Iran refuses to recognize the Jewish state and is a strong supporter of both the Islamist Hamas movement, which controls the Gaza Strip, and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which fought a devastating 2006 war with Israel.
Article Taken from: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.2f057538640f1e680daa7203d3609eff.3f1&show_article=1
The Social Network: Another Aaron’s Golden Calf
Touted as the first acclaimed drama of the awards season, heralded as a generation-defining epic, there couldn’t be more pomp following The Social Network’s ass out the door. The ads may declare, in pointy all-caps, that Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s nascent founder played by Jesse Eisenberg, is a genius, a punk and a billionaire, but they leave off one of the film’s other significant points about him: he is a curly-haired pasty-faced J-E-W.
More specifically, a Jew desperately trying to rise above the impotent fates of his circumcised brethren.
Aaron Sorkin, the seasoned television writer whose small screen work has featured the uninterrupted prosperity of liberal, educated, upper-tax bracket Jews, offers his first Heebish protagonist on film in Zuckerberg. While memorable characters such as Toby Ziegler on The West Wing or Dan Rydell and Jeremy Goodwin on Sports Night have all served as Sorkin’s post-religious culturally identifying mouthpiece, his Zuckerberg goes in a different direction. Where those characters have never wavered from the heritage that bred them to be talented wordsmiths (Sorkin’s Jews are always writers or creators), Zuckerberg can’t seem to run away fast enough.
Early in the film, Mark and best friend-cum-adversary Eduardo Saverin are at a Caribbean themed Alpha Epsilon Pi party populated with cherubic, wooly Jewfaces. The scene is punctuated by a boy in a yarmulke, rocking out on a set of steel drums. Later in the film, after Facebook inevitably takes off, he yells at Eduardo about what’s at stake should the site fail: “I’m not going back to Caribbean night at the Jewish fraternity…Did you like being nothing? Did you like being nobody?!” There is no question that the Caribbean party was lame, but what made it that way? Was it the uninterested gaze of the Asian chicks, the non-sequitorial Niagara Falls videos playing onstage? I have a sinking feeling that the trouble was the yarmulke, sitting atop the head of a rhythmless Yid goofing off on the steel drums. For the celluloid Mark and Eduardo, the real party had no yarmulkes, no Jews. The real party was at the hallowed, veritably jizz-stained walls of the Phoenix final club, whose exclusivity compels busloads of freshman hardbodies to disrobe and get doused with champagne. Who wouldn’t want to be those goys?
My curiosity about the Jewish overtones of the film led me to Arie Hasit, Zuckerberg’s college roommate and the first non-founder to put up a Facebook profile. “It’s offensive to suggest that Mark created Facebook to improve his social status, particularly to the many of us who were his friends.” A brother at AEPi with a penchant for banging a bongo, it’s entirely possible that Arie was the schmuck goofing on the steel drums. Built like a scruffy teddy bear with a smile to match, he moved to Tel Aviv after Harvard, straight to the center of a culture the film’s Zuck tries to avoid. It is clear, from the moment I ask about it, that the idea of the film strikes a nerve. “Regardless of whether or not the film is good, it bothers me. This is something that actually happened, these are events that I witnessed over the course of a few years. To see it all get misconstrued is unsettling.”
At a press conference for the film, director David Fincher didn’t mince words: this is not a biopic. Still, the filmmakers have attracted a shit-storm given that they made a film about real people, most of whom refused to cooperate with them. For example, actor Jesse Eisenberg portrays Mark in a manner that has been described as similar to someone with Asperger’s, an affectation that has been attributed to the CEO. “That is ridiculous,” Arie tells me. “It’s offensive to Mark, and it’s offensive to people with Asperger’s that people feel they can casually diagnose somebody that they know nothing about.”
But what of Zuckerberg’s Judaism? “I can’t really speak to that; it’s none of my business. He liked AEPi, so did Eduardo.” I tell him about the scene where Mark declares he can’t go back to life at a Jewish fraternity. “I never got any sense that Mark or Eduardo were embarrassed to be Jewish. Eduardo was in the Phoenix, and he sometimes brought his friends from AEPi to hang out there.” Mark has since gone back to speak at an AEPi convention and is featured prominently on the organization’s famous alum listing on its website. If he has tried to drop his affiliation, he has done a pretty terrible job, especially for someone who very nearly runs the Internet.
Sitting in a room with opposing counsel, Eisenberg’s Zuck is asked when he first shared his idea for Facebook with Eduardo. “It was at a party at Alpha Epsilon Pi”. The attorney needs clarification. “What’s that?” Mark takes a moment to answer, his face, which barely emotes throughout the film, is seen to almost sink, ever so slightly. “The Jewish fraternity.” Disdain. Shame. The silver screen Mark doesn’t want anyone to know of his Jewish beginnings.
The Farnsworth Invention, Sorkin’s 2007 Broadway play about the invention of television, featured a prominently Jewish David Sarnoff battling the unlikely Idahoan inventor, Philo Farnsworth. The reconciliation of his religion and his business savvy, two opposing worlds, form Sarnoff’s character arc while he is vilified for stealing Farnsworth’s technology. The Social Network tells roughly the same tale eighty years in the future, with Mark Zuckerberg a cross between both roles. Perhaps all of Sorkin’s Jews languish, on some level, in the depths of stereotypical self-loathing. The murky waters here are that the film assumes that being a Jew isn’t that cool. I, for one, don’t believe that is a given, and neither, it seems, does Mark Zuckerberg.
Written by Jonathan Poritsky for The Heeb Magazine
http://www.heebmagazine.com/the-social-network-another-aarons-golden-calf/
Capitol Quorum Forum
Without a rabbi or synagogue, increasing numbers of young American Jews are creating alternative spiritual communities. A visit to the DC Minyan
An American Jewish journalist, a friend of mine, declared with evident pity that I have twice been a victim: first, of the Soviet system that tried to do away with all religions, and then of the Orthodox monopoly over religion in Israel, where I moved in 1990. The religious pluralism of American Judaism, he declared, is the ultimate therapy for that.
As secular Israelis residing in the United States, my husband and I did not even consider trying to forge a connection with any kind of religious establishment. Especially since they call a brit in these parts a bris, and instead of “mazal tov,” as it is said in modern Hebrew, they say “mazeltoff” – and anyone who pronounces these words differently has no chance of social acclimatization. But my mother-in-law said: “Think of the children and their identity.” So we did, and we arrived at a compromise: going to services on Friday night, but in what we initially thought would be a non-serious, noncommittal sort of forum.
That is how we found ourselves at an independent minyan (the Hebrew word used to describe a prayer quorum ), part of a movement that has gained momentum in the United States in recent years. It usually consists of groups of young urban Jews who gather for prayers and Jewish activities without a rabbi, and far from any synagogue sanctuary.
At present, some 20,000 people are paying members of independent minyanim, which makes this a somewhat negligible phenomenon in light of the estimated five to seven million Jews in America. But the number of such communities in the country has grown since they were first established a little over a decade ago. (The havurot of the late 1960s and the ’70s may have been an early precursor of the independent minyanim, but they tended to be more counter-culture in style, and their latter-day heirs are more likely to be found in the Renewal movement. )
The independent minyanim are now starting to spread to suburban areas and to attract more young families with children. The impact of this movement on American synagogue life is not clear, but its activity is generally welcome, especially since so many young Jews have distanced themselves from the greater community in recent years. The independent minyan offers an alternative, one generally based on a halakhic (traditionally religious ) model, for many who are looking both to get involved in a community and for spiritual fulfillment. Often, they are well educated Jewishly .
One of the most prominent of these minyanim is located in the capital; it was founded eight years ago and is called DC Minyan. Its services are conducted in a hall in the city’s Jewish community center near Dupont Circle (one of the city’s focal points, where various demonstrations and events are held ), and seem to be very popular; it was so crowded the first time we went that the last row of seats pushed up almost against the back wall.
The DC Minyan website says that anyone is welcome, so we took along our 10-year-old son and our 3-year-old daughter, who insisted on accompanying the young man leading the service that day with her own singing. Then she asked in a loud voice why her father and brother were sitting apart from us. Like many of the independent minyanim, DC Minyan defines itself as a “traditional egalitarian” community; the men and women sit opposite each other, without a partition – but still separately. This makes it possible – unlike at typical Conservative and Reform congregations – for Jews of all denominations to take part.
The following week I took my place, prayer book in hand, alongside some smiling young women, one of whom had a nose ring. This time, Deena Fox, a young woman wearing a tallit over a flowery knee-length dress, stood at the dais and opened the service – in Hebrew. Fox, a lawyer by profession, said she led prayers even when she was a girl. “I had experience with egalitarian services in Chicago,” she explained, “and it was only natural that I’d look for something similar when I came to Washington.”
DC Minyan gathers on weekends and holidays, and also sponsors a study group that meets in the middle of the week. The congregation during the High Holy Days was mixed: young and old people, students, and couples with children – and lots of lawyers. For many, this is a temporary sort of congregation, just as Washington as a city is a stop-over for tens of thousands of interns who work at government institutions and then move elsewhere.
One reason young people are attracted to DC Minyan is that membership in a regular local synagogue can cost up to $2,600 per year for a couple. Not everyone can pay such sums, or wants to have to ask for a discount. The annual membership fee at the DC Minyan, by contrast, is $260 per person for anyone earning $35,000 a year or more.
‘Participatory experience’
Julia Zuckerman, 31, a member of the DC Minyan Steering Committee, and also an attorney, started attending the group’s activities five years ago when she moved to Washington from New York.
“I grew up in the Conservative movement, but was looking for something other than a regular synagogue,” she says. “I don’t want to say anything negative about other institutions, but in my experience, the DC Minyan, or Kehilat Hadar in New York [another independent minyan], offer a much more participatory experience. So instead of having a rabbi or cantor leading and telling everyone else what is going on – you feel like you are really contributing and participating rather than just showing up.”
While women can lead services at DC Minyan, the prayers are conducted in Hebrew and the atmosphere is more reminiscent of an Orthodox synagogue than a Reform temple.
Zuckerman: “We put out some siddurim [prayer books] with transliteration that may be a bit helpful if people don’t know how to read Hebrew at all. We want to be welcoming and as open as possible, but we also want to keep up the congregation’s ‘standards.’ I do not think anyone wants the tefillot [prayers] to be in English. We have a ‘learners course’ approximately once a year for people who want to know more about the services, but we don’t have regular Hebrew classes.”
If it is so important for you to stick to tradition, why don’t you take a rabbi with an open mind who doesn’t object to women leading the service?
Zuckerman: “We are not at all against rabbis – I personally think rabbis are usually very helpful and knowledgeable, but some synagogues rely on the rabbi far too much. You don’t have to be a rabbi to know how to lead a prayer session. Anyone can do that, you just have to learn how. Once I went to a synagogue for the reading of the Megillah [on Purim]. It is a huge event and an honor [to participate]; people ask weeks in advance if they can recite portions of it. But at that synagogue, the rabbi and cantor read almost the whole megillah. It was very sad – nobody there knew how to do it or even wanted to learn.”
At present there are some 30 men and women who can lead services at DC Minyan. All who are interested must first meet with the gabai (a layperson with some religious functions ) and others, and go through the service with them.
“In the past, there were instances where people didn’t prepare well enough or didn’t know the melodies. I don’t think we ever had anything extremely weird or inappropriate happen,” explains Zuckerman, “but quality is very important to us … You shouldn’t lead the service until you are ready to do so. Most people would rather make a mistake in front of the [gabai] than in front of everyone, so they don’t mind participating in this ‘trial run.’”
As far as the separate seating for men and women is concerned, she notes: “People who founded this minyan came from different backgrounds – one was Orthodox, one Conservative and one Reform. It was a compromise that would allow making as many people as possible comfortable.”
However, DC Minyan’s website does stipulate that people who identify with a different sex from that written on their birth certificates are invited to sit in the section designated for it. “No one will ask what gender you are,” Zuckerman adds.
Another issue that arose when the group got started was how to define a minyan, the number of worshipers necessary for reciting certain prayers or for reading from the Torah: Did it have to consist only of 10 men, according to Orthodox tradition, or could it be mixed? The answer the congregation came up with – in accordance with its egalitarian approach, but without upsetting members who believe a minyan should consist of men – was that a minyan consists of 10 men and 10 women. (This was based on the policy adopted by Jerusalem’s Shira Hadasha community. ) When it comes to kashrut, however, there is no room for innovation; the food served at all events is kosher.
“Shabbat dinners and lunches are usually catered by a kosher supermarket and we charge $18 for members and $21 for non-members,” Zuckerman explains.
Many rabbis affiliated with established religious streams say they do not see the independent minyan movement as a form of protest, but rather as a means for filling spiritual needs during a transient period in peoples’ lives. When the young people settle down and have families, the religious leaders believe, they will look for a “regular” community.
“We are a downtown community,” Zuckerman says, “a young community, and some of the families here will stay in D.C. for the long run. But we also have a lot of other families who, often, once they have a second kid, will need to move out of the city because they don’t have enough space.”
Despite the big turnover in Washington, DC Minyan manages to maintain more or less the same number of attendees, “about 300 official members and for the High Holidays and Purim, many more people join us who are not members,” notes Zuckerman. “For Yom Kippur last year, we had more people than than our space can accommodate. So this year, we had to close the registration earlier.”
Some of the singles who come to the minyan activities are looking for a social network. “We don’t have a dating program or events for singles,” adds Zuckerman, “but we have a happy hour, which is purely social. We have several couples who met at DC Minyan and subsequently got married.”
The most obvious strength of the independent minyan also contributes to its greatest weakness, she notes: “the lack of pastoral care.” Participants in the minyan may have a chance to express themselves religiously or spiritually, but “we do not have anyone professionally trained to offer spiritual counseling. That’s something that is missing,” Zuckerman says. “We’ve thought of putting together a list of rabbis who are willing to help people in these situations. As far as halakhic issues that we cannot resolve within the community [are concerned], we consult with [outside] rabbis.”
The Friday evening dvar Torah (sermon ) at DC Minyan is generally delivered by a member of the congregation. However, on one recent evening, Israeli ambassador Michael Oren gave the address, and even spoke a little about what Israel is prepared to sacrifice for peace. For the most part, speakers usually avoid politics – a somewhat difficult mission in so political a city as this.
“We do recite the prayer for the State of Israel on Saturday mornings,” Zuckerman says, “but we make an effort to stay away from anything that is political because people in our community have really different views. We have people who work for AIPAC and people involved with J Street. We don’t think that DC Minyan is the appropriate place for [political discussions]. If a group of people want to gather at someone’s house, they are, however, welcome to report about it in our bulletin.”
Article written by Natasha Mozgovaya for Haaretz.com
Report: DNA tests support Zimbabwe tribe’s claim of Jewish roots
British scientists have succeeded in proving the Lemba tribe of Zimbabwe and South Africa descended from Jewish ancestors, according to a report by the BBC.
According to the report, the scientists conducted DNA tests on a large sample of the Lemba people, which confirmed Semitic origins dating back more than two millennium.
The BBC says that the 80,000 Lemba tribe members abstain from eating pork, wear yarmulke-like skull caps, conduct ritual animal slaughter, and even put a Star of David on their gravestones.
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The report says the tribe has an oral tradition that links them to the ancient Jews. They also circumcise their male children, which is not a common practice in Zimbabwe, but is one of the basic principles of the Jewish faith.
Members of the priestly clan of the Lemba even have a genetic element also found among the Jewish priestly line – known as Cohen.
“This was amazing,” Professor Tudor Parfitt from the University of London told the BBC. “It looks as if the Jewish priesthood continued in the West by people called Cohen, and in same way it was continued by the priestly clan of the Lemba,” he added.
“They have a common ancestor who geneticists say lived about 3,000 years ago somewhere in north Arabia, which is the time of Moses and Aaron when the Jewish priesthood started,” Parfitt told the BBC.
In addition, the report says, the Lemba have a sacred prayer language that combines Hebrew and Arabic, which indicates their roots were in Israel and Yemen.
“We have been a very secretive people, because we believe we are a special people,” religious Lemba singer Fungisai Zvakavapano-Mashavave told the BBC.
The tribe even uses a religious artifact they say connects them to their Jewish ancestry – a replica of the Biblical Ark known as the ngoma lungundu, meaning “the drum that thunders,” which they say was made by Moses.
The tribe’s oral tradition says that centuries ago a small group of men began a long journey carrying the ngoma lungundu from Yemen to southern Africa.
The Ark went missing during the 1970s and was eventually rediscovered in Harare in 2007 by Professor Parfitt.
“Many people say that the story is far-fetched, but the oral traditions of the Lemba have been backed up by science,” Parfitt said.
Despite their “Jewish roots,” many of the tribe are now Christian or Muslim, the report claims. But, says Perez Hamandishe, a pastor and member of parliament, “Christianity is my religion, and Judaism is my culture.”
Article taken from: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1154631.html
Drake talks about his Bar Mitzvah
Make sure to see Drake when he comes to Syracuse University Friday April 30th for Mayfest
Easy Passover Recipes for the Dorm
Sick of eating just plain Matzah and cream cheese? Me too! Here are some easy Passover recipes that require little more than a microwave:
Matzah Pizza Sandwich:
Things you’ll need: Matzah, pizza sauce, cheese
1) Take a piece of Matzah, put it on a microwave safe plate, and cover it with kosher for passover pizza sauce (don’t be afraid, be generous)
2) Load up on some kosher for passover cheese
3) Put a second piece of Matzah on top
4) Microwave for approximately 2 minutes and enjoy!
If you can find some veggies to put on your pizza and make it gourmet
Matzah Grill Cheese:
Things you’ll need: Matzah. butter, cheese
1) Take a piece of Matzah and spread some butter or margarine on it and place on a microwave safe plate butter side up
2) Put some (or a lot) of cheese on the buttered side of the Matzah
3) Put a second piece of buttered Matzah on top of cheese (butter face down)
4) Cook in the Microwave for approximately 2 minutes or until cheese is fully melted and enjoy
Have any other recipes? Submit them to The Daily Schmear by emailing Ari Weinberger at arweinbe@syr.edu
Israel: A Leader in Innovation
Check out the video below to see how Israel has squeaked by the global economic meltdown on it’s way to becoming one of the world leaders in innnovation and entrepreneurship
Jewdysee
Maya Saban has been present in the German music scene for some years now. Working with various famous German music artists as well as her success as a solo artist display what an astounding career she has had so far.
However, it all began long time before all these musical achievements.
At the age of 7, Maya has already been a little celebrity within her own family. At that time she already sang Jewish classics like “Jiddishe Mame” or “Papirosen” at weddings and other celebrations.
Being the daughter of a German Jewish mother and an Israeli father living in Germany, Maya had the luck to grow up in the beautiful multi cultural, musical, cosmopolitan and innovative city, Berlin.
Now, as an established artist, she works with the influences she has gathered throughout her life so far and puts them together in the new project Jewdyssee which she wants to share with the world.
Maya: Today, I want to connect my Jewish and my musical world. The expressive melodies and the deeply moving lyrics are crying out for a modern production. Accordion meets club beats, sweat,ecstasy and deep fascination with the stories of the people. With the mixture of modern pop and club culture and these traditional Yiddish songs, I particularly want to address to people who have not much to do with this culture so far.
Jewdyssee infuses Yiddish culture and expression in todays world by exploring the music and history that developed for a thousand years around the yiddish language and the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe.
The songs do not only reflect the more than thousand year old, with partial tragic, history in the “Traditionals”, but also the never ending wanting hope, which draws from a clever and sharp humor.
“When I look at the Jews, i have little to be happy about. But when I look at the others, I am to glad to be a Jew.” Albert Einstein
Jewdyssee is the musical “yiddishkait” – it’s not only a way of living; it’s a way of celebrating. The band reinvigorates music tradition and culture, so people are surprised by the new presentation, the celebration.
What Nouvelle Vague did for Bossa Nova and Gotan Project for Tango in clubs, Jewdyssee is doing it for Jewish music. They modernise short stories about life, love, destiny and “glick” and bring it to the clubs.
The party can begin and with “a bissl glick” Jewdyssee will soon celebrate the “yiddishkeit” in your shtetl – with you!
For more information check out their myspace page at www.myspace.com/jewdysseemusic
Jewish Geography
Before Blackberrys, before the Internet, before telephones, it was there.It preceded the Yellow Pages, outdates the radio, and came way before the telegram. It is the earliest search engine, the world’s first directory and the oldest rolodex in the history of mankind.It is, of course, Jewish Geography.
Whether it was at the construction of the first Temple or your cousin’s Bar Mitzvah last week, if you needed to reach another Jew, you could scour the earth, spend hours on the internet, read an entire phonebook and maybe, just maybe, you would find someone you know.
Or, you could use Jewish Geography. Because chances are the guy you’re looking for had dinner with your uncle Larry last week. And his sister goes to grad school with your cousin Sarah.
Today’s Jewish population is one of the tightest-knit communities in the world. If you don’t believe me, just think back to the last time you met another Jewish person on the SU campus. Chances are the conversation went something like this:
Person 1: “So where are you from?”
Person 2: “_____ville, it’s about 20 minutes away from _______ city.”
1: “Oh yea, is that near ______town?”
2: “Yea, it’s about five minutes away.”
1: “Oh my gosh, do you know Sally Horowitz?”
2: “Yea! We went to synagogue together all through grade school!”
1: “Oh then you must be that friend she mentioned with the brother who lives in Rochester.”
2: “How do you know about David?”
1: “He used to date my friend from back home.”
Does this sound eerily familiar? It should. Because if you’re reading this you’re probably in a Hillel right now, so if you didn’t have this conversation today already, you’re either over-hearing it right now or you will by the time you leave.
Heck, if you played “six degrees of separation” between any two Jews, you would win the game so quickly that you could spend your extra three degrees trying to find Kevin Bacon.
But why is this so? How does every Jew in the known universe seem to know someone who knows someone who went to Hebrew school with your dad?
Whether it’s all the places where various Jews gather (synagogues, youth groups, law school, etc.) or that seventh sense we all seem to have that detects other members of the Tribe (our sixth sense tells us how to spin dreidels), some cosmic force out there connects us all to one another in some way.
Maybe it’s all part of some larger plan to unify us as a people. Maybe it’s a complete accident. Maybe this all just exists in our heads and we’re really not all that connected. Maybe, just maybe, your grandpa George wasn’t actually stationed in Italy with your TA’s great uncle, and the Matthew you know from high school isn’t the same Matthew from your hometown that hooked up with your friend through J-date.
Who knows? Something like this is impossible to measure. All I know for sure is that when I need to find another Jewish person, there’s a whole network of people who could connect the two of us.
Some call that coincidence. Some call it fate. I call it Jewish Geography.
